Speakers Call for First-Class Education And End to Child Poverty

Democrats conveyed a message of optimism and hope in a series of
speeches Tuesday night on social issues including education, but they
conceded that there are still many challenges ahead when it comes to
providing access to high-quality schools and health care and ending
child poverty.

“Surely we can find the will and resources to build new
schools, hire new teachers, and connect classes to the Internet,”
said U.S. Rep. Harold E. Ford Jr., D-Tenn., the keynote speaker on the
second night of the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles.
“Imagine a world where we could give every child a first-class
education.”

Mr. Ford, a 30-year-old two-term member of Congress, serves on the
Education and the Workforce Committee in the U.S. House of
Representatives. Vice President Al Gore, the presumptive Democratic
nominee for president, has called him a “rising star” in
the party.

Mr. Ford was preceded on the campaign podium by a long list of
speakers, including two liberal pillars of the Democratic party, U.S.
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., and Bill Bradley, who challenged Mr.
Gore for the presidential nomination this year and served previously as
a U.S. senator from New Jersey.

Mr. Kennedy, who has served in the Senate for nearly 40 years and is
the ranking Democrat on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions Committee, focused on health care and the need to make sure
that every child has access to such services. “If you believe
prosperity is a challenge to do better, we must provide access to
health care for all children,” he said.

“If we don’t end child poverty in my lifetime, shame on
me, shame on you, shame on all of us,” he told the convention
crowd.

When Mr. Ford was selected as a keynote speaker, pundits and the
media took note of his youth. In his remarks, Mr. Ford spoke of his
even younger constituents.

During his first run for Congress in 1996, Mr. Ford said he did not
get as many invitations to speak as he would have liked. But, he added,
his presence was frequently requested at kindergarten graduations.

“I spoke at more kindergarten graduations than anyone in my
district ever knew existed. Thirty, to be exact,” he
recalled.

Mr. Ford said he continues to attend kindergarten graduations to
this day.

“For those children and their families, we must continue
working for a better life and a better world,” the congressman
told the crowd.

“Now,” he continued, “as we turn our attention to
the choice at hand, let us remember those children, in kindergartens in
Memphis and across our nation and remember what this election is really
all about: Them.”